This report documents the Relevance Criteria and Online Video project funded through the Dean's Innovation Grant funded by the UNT Libraries. The final report briefly describes the Relevance Criteria and Online Video project activities, budget, and outcomes.

This report provides an overview of current political and military dynamics, with a focus on the Trump Administration's new strategy for Afghanistan and South Asia, the U.S.-led coalition and Afghan military operations, and recent political developments, including prospects for peace talks and elections.

This report discusses the decisions of two U.S. Appeals Courts regarding the cases of "U.S. v. Lynch" and "U.S. v. Petras" which both concerned passenger misconduct toward flight attendants.

This report discusses the provisions of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (S. 2155) and some related policy issues.

This report discusses excise taxes collected on firearms which are used to fund wildlife restoration and legislative proposals to adjust the tax system on firearms.

This report discusses major topics of interest and debate in the 115th Congress related to trade and finance.

This report discusses Iraq's political and governmental structure, economy, humanitarian issues, military operations, and relations with the U.S.

This report discusses Senate Joint Resolution 54 which directs the President to remove U.S. forces from "hostilities in or affecting" Yemen (except for those U.S. forces engaged in counterterrorism operations directed at al Qaeda or associated forces). It provides a brief overview of U.S. involvement in Yemen both militarily and diplomatically through advisement of Saudi Arabia on reducing civilian casulaties and refueling of Saudi planes used in airstrikes.

This report discusses the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the case of "Linde v. Arab Bank, PLC".

This report provides an introduction to 529 college savings plans and examines the specific tax advantages of these plans.

This report provides a historical synopsis of the evolving nature of the federal grants-in-aid system, focusing on the role Congress has played in defining the system's scope and nature.

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This report discusses the supervised release (parole) for federal crimes, the nature of the supervision and the conditions imposed during supervised release.

This report discusses the supervised release (parole) for federal crimes, the nature of the supervision, and the conditions imposed during supervised release.

This report analyzes variation in the mortgage interest deduction tax expenditure across states. Tax expenditures, such as the mortgage interest deduction, can generally be viewed as government spending administered via the tax code, or as tax incentives that are intended to achieve particular policy objectives. Regardless of the interpretation, tax expenditures provide a benefit to qualifying tax payers by lowering their federal tax liabilities.

The Carbon Capture Simulation Initiative (CCSI) is a partnership among national laboratories, industry and academic institutions that is developing and deploying state-of-the-art computational modeling and simulation tools to accelerate the commercialization of carbon capture technologies from discovery to development, demonstration, and ultimately the widespread deployment to hundreds of power plants. The CCSI Toolset will provide end users in industry with a comprehensive, integrated suite of scientifically validated models, with uncertainty quantification (UQ), optimization, risk analysis and decision making capabilities. The CCSI Toolset incorporates commercial and open-source software currently in use by industry and is also developing new software tools as necessary to fill technology gaps identified during execution of the project. Ultimately, the CCSI Toolset will (1) enable promising concepts to be more quickly identified through rapid computational screening of devices and processes; (2) reduce the time to design and troubleshoot new devices and processes; (3) quantify the technical risk in taking technology from laboratory-scale to commercial-scale; and (4) stabilize deployment costs more quickly by replacing some of the physical operational tests with virtual power plant simulations. CCSI is led by the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) and leverages the Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories’ core strengths in modeling …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Three of the nine selected agencies' risk assessment methodologies that GAO reviewed—the Department of Energy (DOE), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Department of State (State)—fully align with the Interagency Security Committee's (ISC) risk assessment standards, but six do not—the Department of the Interior (DOI), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the Federal Protective Service (FPS), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). As a result, these six agencies may not have a complete understanding of the risks facing approximately 52,000 federal facilities and may be less able to allocate security resources cost-effectively at the individual facility level or across the agencies' facility portfolios. ISC's The Risk Management Process for Federal Facilities ( RMP ) standard requires that agencies' facility risk assessment methodologies must (1) consider all of the undesirable events identified in the RMP as possible risks to federal facilities, and (2) assess the threat, consequences, and vulnerability to specific undesirable events. Six of the nine agencies' methodologies GAO reviewed do not align with ISC's standards because the methodologies do not (1) consider …

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This report analyzes the extent of foreign portfolio investment in the U.S. economy, assesses the economic conditions that are attracting such investments, and discusses the impact such investments are having on the economy. This report relies on a comprehensive set of data regarding capital flows represented by purchases and sales of U.S. government securities and U.S. and foreign corporate stocks and bonds into and out of the United States; the data is reported by the Treasury Department on a monthly basis.

This report discusses two broad policy options for Congress as it considers reauthorizing federal surface transportation programs.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) reduces the average delivery time frame for emergency food aid by prepositioning food domestically—that is, in warehouses in the United States—and overseas. GAO estimates that compared with USAID's standard shipping process, which can take several months, prepositioning food aid shortened delivery time frames by an average of almost a month for shipments to the World Food Program (WFP). GAO also estimates that prepositioning shortened delivery time frames by an average of more than 2 months for other organizations—“cooperating sponsors”—that receive USAID grants. In addition, USAID reduces delivery time frames when it diverts shipments en route to overseas prepositioning warehouses to areas with immediate needs. For all cooperating sponsors, GAO estimates that diversions saved, on average, about 2 months."

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This report discusses the current political and economic conditions in Russia, focusing on the impact of Vladimir Putin's leadership and the leadership of his successor/protégé, Dmitriy Medvedev, both of which have steered Russia away from progress toward democratization. The report also discusses the state of the economy since the Soviet collapse in 1999, how the recent global economic downturn has affected Russia, the state of Russia's military, and the current relationship between Russia and the United States.

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